Amundsen exhibition opens @ IMAS

One hundred and four years after Roald Amundsen arrived in Hobart to break the news of his historic conquest of the South Pole, IMAS is hosting a rare exhibition of photos and biographical information about Norway’s most famous explorer.

Titled Lessons from the Arctic – How Roald Amundsen won the Race to the South Pole, the exhibition showcases more than 200 photographs from Amundsen’s 1910–12 expedition, many of which have never been displayed before.

Created by Oslo’s Fram Museum, which was named after the vessel which Amundsen took to the Antarctic and sailed into Hobart on 7 March 1912, the exhibition opened during last weekend’s Australian Antarctic Festival and will now be displayed at IMAS from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, until the end of October.

IMAS Executive Director Professor Richard Coleman said IMAS was a fitting venue for the exhibition and encouraged locals and visitors alike to take the opportunity to see it.

“IMAS’s waterfront building is just a few hundred metres from where Amundsen stepped ashore in 1912, and as Antarctic and Southern Ocean researchers we have great respect for the pioneering explorers who paved the way for modern scientists.

“The technology and equipment we use today is a huge improvement on that available to Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton or Mawson, but the places they explored remain dangerous and largely unknown, which makes their achievements all the more impressive.

“IMAS is delighted to host the Amundsen exhibition and we look forward to unveiling the new home of our Amundsen bust, which was presented to the people of Tasmania in 1988, when the current exterior building works at IMAS are completed.

“I thank Ambassador Unni Klovstad, the Norwegian Embassy and the Norwegian Consul in Hobart, Jenny-Ellen Kennedy, for helping to bring the exhibition to Tasmania,” Prof Coleman said.